Ant-Man – A Small Step But A Giant Leap Into The MCU

26 Jul

I’m not going to go on and give a full review because there are lots of those out there and my honest review of this is ‘Go see it, go see it now’. I want to talk more on about the effect this film has on the MCU, which is a lot.

Paul Rudd, star of the titular hero in Marvels latest superhero flic gave an interview with Sky recently and revealed that when he told his young son that he was going to be playing a superhero called Ant-Man, his son responded with “that’s going to be stupid”. Admit it; you had the same thought in the back of your mind when it was announced and then the thoughts of how the heck is a man who controls ants going to connect with the non-comic book audience.

Well, I can happily tell you that you can put all those thoughts to rest.

Ant-Man is a funny, charming, heart-warming, empowering, action-heist movie that reminds me so much of Iron Man 1. Much like Iron Man the main villain isn’t a big bad, which has garnered some complaints, which I quite honestly don’t get. Are they expecting every Marvel movie to have a villain on the level of Loki, Ultron or Thanos? The villain, Yellowjacket played wonderfully by Corey Stoll did exactly what it needed to do. It was a vehicle to move the origin story of both Scott Langs Ant-Man and Hope Van Dynes Wasp forward and provide a glimpse of Hank Pym as Ant-Man and Janet as Wasp.

Yep, 2 origin stories, 2 post credit scenes, Ant-Man becomes an Avenger, Giant-Man, Civil War tie in, the first mention of Spider-Man and a potential death of an Avenger. There was a lot, but it didn’t seem it until you actually stop and think about it.

Yellowjacket looking menacing.

Origins
We learn that Hank was the Ant-Man in the past and worked for SHIELD. In the comics Hank and Janet are the founding members of The Avengers and Janet is the one who names them. This was neither confirmed nor denied in the film but if they want to go that route in the future, that door is well and truly open.

Janet died saving the world from a nuke. Or did she? No, she didn’t. At the end of the film we see Scott get back from the Quantum Realm which gives us hope that we’ll see Janet in the future MCU. One thing I noticed was that even though there is an actor confirmed to play Janet, we never see her face. On the nuke she’s in an early prototype Wasp suit and then at the very end we see a picture of her and Hank but she has a hat covering her face. Now, this is Marvel and nothing is without reason or consequence so does the secrecy of what Janet looks like mean we could see her pop up on SHIELD next season before moving over to Ant-Man 2 or even Civil War. Will we find out that when Scott came back from the xxxxx he also bought back Janet?

Scott’s story was standard formula of man gets suit, man learns how to use suit to control ants…okay not so standard but still. It was an enjoyable ride as we followed Scott to becoming the Ant-Man but it was Hope’s journey of becoming the Wasp which was the most satisfying. Cue end credits.

Credits
The first end credit scene has Hank revealing The Wasp suit that he and Janet were designing and it looked incredible. I cannot wait to see Evangeline Lilly donning the suit in the next Ant-Man film but could we see her much earlier than that, like in Civil War?

The second end credit scene featured Captain America, Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Oh yes, they found Bucky! I’m going to call it right now (again, I called it before TWS came out). They follow the comic and Cap gets killed in Civil War and Bucky takes over the mantel. How many more films has Evans got on his contract anyway?

Ant-Man Became An Avenger
Well that was quick huh? But after he kicked Falcons ass, why the heck not recruit him. The fight scene between the two is probably my 2^nd favourite hero v hero fight, only behind Hulk and Iron man from AoU. It had comedy but it showed Ant-Man can hang with the big boys and how his fight scenes can play out.

Suit Up!

Civil War
With that second end credit scene and now with him being recruited by Falcon and Cap, I think we can safely say that Scott (and maybe Hope) will be siding with Cap in Civil War. In the comic, Spider-Man reveals his identity to the world and changes everything. Now we don’t know what Spider-Mans involvement is going to be in the MCU when it comes to the Civil War story but to have the impact that Spidey had in the comic, we need an established character, and while Spidey is a household name in the real world, in the MCU he’s nothing. Could we see Ant-Man take up that role?

Spider-Man Got A Mention
Indirectly but he got a mention. When Falcon was talking to his contact about locating a superhero she told him to be more specific as they have one that swings and climb walls. Now, Kevin Fiege has already come out and said that this line was already in the film before the Sony/Marvel deal was reached but I’m calling bullshit on that. Nothing in the MCU is in there without meaning. There would be no reason what-so-ever to refer to Spider-Man if he’s not going to appear in your property, especially when that character is owned by another company.

Giant-Man?
If you know the comics then you know that Ant-Man can also become big. Very big. At the end of the film Scott used the enlarger disks Hank created in the regulator to return himself back to normal size from the Quantum Realm. Surely this hints that in Ant-Man 2 we’ll see Scott go large. I doubt we’ll see Giant-Man or even much of the Ant-Man ability in Civil War.

Anthony
I found this funnier than I probably should have and I think I’ve stumbled up an Easter egg so hidden it only exists in my mind.

Anthony the ant. Now it’s obvious why he’s call Anthony, however, Falcon is played by Anthony Mackie, who appears in the film. Anthony the Ant gets shot and we see his wing hit the ground, could this be a hint that during Civil War the Falcon will be a casualty of said war? Like how in AoU when Cap tells everyone to walk it off if they get killed and the person we see when he says that is Quicksilver.